Misdirection
by HeCallsMeHisChild
Summary: Oh, wow. Look at the crowd. What a day for an execution, eh, Zim? Well, they've all come for you, so let's get this show on the road. Time to end this charade once and for all. (Sequel to Hey Spacejerk, but can stand on its own)
1. Testing 1-2-3

Hello! Hello? Can you hear me? Testing, testing, one-two-three. Oh, neat. You can hear me. Can you see me, too? How many fingers am I holding up? Hah, I forgot. Waving around a five-fingered hand freaks you guys out first time you see it. I'd better introduce myself.

Hi, I'm Dib Membrane! I was a human being, as you can see on the screens. Homo Sapien. Most of the time we've got two arms, two legs, two eyes, and one head, with varying degrees of functionality. We also have ears instead of antennae, which are flaps next to holes in our head. Haha, Zim, look at 'em cringe all at once. I could do that all day.

Ah, you're all wondering why I'm on your screens, yeah? Considering this is such an important trial you're in the middle of, what's a human doing here? Though I guess you don't really know much about humans, so you're just asking yourself why an inferior alien is talking to you, and how I got control of the signal. Channel? Network? Whatever you call it. Or, you're wondering, did the Almighty Tallests script this? Is this a planned part of the entertainment?

Nah. I invited myself to the trial. It's probably the most important trial in your species history, how could I possibly miss it? It's been a really long time coming, longer than most of my kinds' lifespans. There, standing on that central platform, with all kinds of wires jammed into his PAK, is notorious defective, Invader Zim. For those of you who couldn't be here in person and are watching on individual PAK screens across the galaxy, I'll crop a live feed of the judgment chamber into the corner so you don't feel cheated.

You're all shocked I know what a PAK is. Well, Zim was assigned to my planet, and let me tell you, he's a terrible Invader. Because of that, there's a whole lot I know about you. Probably a lot more than you're comfortable with. But I'm not here to frighten you with those details. I'm here as a witness. After all, what's a trial without testimony?

Gotcha now, huh? You wanna see just how badly Zim embarrassed himself and shamed the empire. Well, if you don't mind listening to a lowly human's memories, I'm happy to expand on today's entertainment. It's going to be an execution you'll never forget, I promise you that. So sit back, grab a snack, and let me tell you just how deep his treachery runs.

* * *

**Note: **SO HERE WE GO AGAIN. This is the sequel to Hey Spacejerk, however I intend to write it so that you do not have to read Hey Spacejerk in order to understand what is going on. Let me know if I succeed!

Also, once I saw Enter The Florpus, I realized I could never again write Professor Membrane as a villain. It's too late to fix Hey Spacejerk, so please just be aware that Spacejerk was written based off knowledge of Prof Membrane that we had with just the TV show. I may have to reference a similarly villainous Membrane IN THIS FIC simply for continuity's sake between my stories, but I no longer hold the villain-Membrane perspective and will not in future Zim fics. I like working with canon info best of all.


	2. Episode Recap

Thanks for gagging him. I never could get Zim to shut up for more than two seconds at a time. Is that some kind of zap-gag? Look at that twitching. Haven't seen him jerk around like that since, well... I guess that's another story. Don't worry, Zim. Let 'em have a little fun, yeah? It'll all be over soon enough. Man, you guys are awfully efficient. Nothing like what I'm used to out of him.

Hey, are those the Tallests? Of course they are, I don't see anyone else half as tall. Hi there! I'm from Earth, where you sent Zim! Right, right, I already said that. Very sorry. I'm just so excited to meet the all-knowing rulers of a species that values height over silly things like ingenuity or bravery or common sense. It's truly incredible how you've made up for any deficits by ensuring your rulers can tower over everyone else. And you found two at the same time! You know, over in my neck of the universe, some governments rig elections. Did you ever have to get checked for artificial height enhancement?

It's a joke! Just kidding. But you don't want a comedy routine, you're waiting for the dirt on Zim. Uh, that's an expression. It means you want all the embarassing info I've got on him. Probably the only reason you haven't stopped the transmission. So let's see. Where do I even start?

I should probably start by telling you that Zim came to Earth when I was 11 years old. For humans, that's still really close to infancy, or what you call smeethood. And we don't give our babies information downloads either, they have to learn without a download and it takes many years to gather all the experiences that you guys cram into a barely formed cranium instantaneously. Barbaric, I know.

So the point is, it should have been simple for Zim to crush me, right? Child's play, since that's all I was. A child. Not that you could have gotten me to admit it back then. I was just the youngest defender Earth had ever had, and sooner or later someone would take notice and be proud of me. Preferably my father. Excuse me, my parental unit. That's right, humans still… what did you call it, Zim? Manually procreate.

Wow. The recoil on that reaction was beautiful. Lemme get an instant replay on that in the other corner of the screen. There, that's you. That's your faces. That's so great. Storing that away for perpetuity, now.

I got off topic. Anyway, so Zim never managed to crush me and I always stopped him from taking over the planet any time he wasn't stopping himself by accident. This continued over several years until I became an adult. What happened there is kind of a long story, but we both found out something that put us on different terms with each other. Zim finally realized and accepted what you'd all known this whole time; that he was really an exile. Disgraced. Sent to my planet, not to conquer, but to die.

You're laughing. Yeah, it was a big joke, right? You guys really pulled the wool over his eyes, by which I mean, you fooled him good and got rid of him.

See, part of him always knew the truth. But that part kept getting locked away, over and over. He was so desperate for the approval of you two, over there in your fancy dress robes. Tallest Red and Tallest Purple. "My Tallests," he would call you. With reverence. Nearly worship.

He finally figured it out, along with a few interesting things about his PAK. So with this newfound information, what did he do?

He threw his lot in with Earth, and began to teach humans how to reach the stars.


	3. The Quarter Trick

Hey, you wanna see a magic trick? It's loads of fun. I know you can only see me on the screen and you could claim I'm manipulating the image, but I swear this is how it works in real life. Watch. I have a quarter here, a low-value moneys unit. But very shiny, see? One moment it's in my hand. I close my hand. Are you watching? Do you see? Really see? Now open the hand…

Quarter is gone.

Like I said, this is how it goes in real life. Oh, hello, what have we here? I reach behind my ear and… there it is. Huh. How did it get from my hand to my ear?

Don't freak out too much, it's just a trick. Stuff like that used to boggle Zim. He'd either screech and demand how I did it or enter this almost trance-like state I couldn't budge him from for hours. I'm guessing he was trying to figure out how it worked. He did, eventually, but not until decades down the line, close to the end. Even then I had to give him a huge hint and then show him exactly how one of the tricks went, step by step.

Zim is incredibly smart for being such an idiot sometimes. Once he got the basic principle, he was able to figure all the rest of the tricks out. But you guys don't know about magic tricks yet, so it's still amazing, yeah? Maybe you can figure it out. Don't focus too hard on that, though. I'm still talking about Zim and how he threw in his lot with Earth.

Of course, Zim being Zim, throwing his lot in with Earth came out of his mouth like being our future star-guide and endless references to how magnanimous and magnificent he was, but I couldn't really blame him. Got annoying, I grant you, but the days he was a swaggering, pompous imp were better than the days he barely moved.

Bet none of you know what this is like. You wake up from your rest cycle or recharge state or whatever, and you have this black hole where your energy used to be. Like getting into a cruiser and trying to start it up, but there's no engine there. You're an empty shell with no purpose. Bet you didn't know Zim had days like that, but you're probably not surprised either. Defectives have all sorts of things wrong with them, right? That's what the Control Brains say.

On bad days, he'd just sit there and roll his head to the side and stare at me. For hours. Without speaking. I could insult him, could try to joke with him, could shake him. Nothing. Sometimes doing a magic trick seemed to focus his eyes a bit, but it was hard to tell with those eyes. Usually I just had to wait it out and cover for him at work.

Oh yeah. We had a job together. They were the only ones who knew he was an alien for a long time. A whole organization dedicated to investigating the paranormal. They took a big risk hiring him on, but that opened the door for all kinds of interesting hires down the line. Zim answered all their questions about Irkens and helped them catalogue every alien species he knew about. Eventually they moved on to developing Irken tech, modifying it based on our available resources of course. When Zim wasn't doing that stuff, he was out in the field with me, tracking down leads for other creatures or entities that humans hadn't confirmed were real or not. Things got real weird that one time we went through Gravity Falls, let me tell you.

But he never forgot that he was in exile, and he never stopped thinking about the rest of you. On stakeouts when we were waiting to catch the Jersey Devil or watching a trap we set out for vampires, we'd brainstorm what he'd do if he could get back to Irk. On rare occasions, planning that out would carry him past one of his bad spells. Gotta say, the PAK really does a number on Irken brain chemistry, but you only see that once its control is broken.

Hey, how about another instant replay! You see this? This is you. A whole crowd of Irkens with about five seconds of blank faces. Bet you are missing about five to ten seconds of time, aren't you? Curious, isn't it? Wondering what I said? Or are you thinking there was a power-outage, or bad reception for the transmission?

There was no power outage, but I won't be replaying my words. You can't really absorb what I said. Yet.

* * *

**Note:** I was inspired by rinsfw on tu.m(blr). This lovely artist did at least two pages of comics about Zim reacting to Dib doing magic tricks, and that has fed into part of the concept for this story. By the way, as a heads up, do not expect this fic to be as long as Spacejerk. It is more of an epilogue fic. I don't EXPECT it to be more than 20 chapters at most, though my brain often tosses my initial expectations out the window for kicks. Lastly, for readers on ffDOTnet, I just want you to know that I see every review and you are beautiful. I don't respond as much on that site because I find that set of site features clunky. I'm much more responsive on the other four fic sites I post to, notably, watt (pad) and a certain Archive and my blog on tumbler. Misspellings intentional, this site has fun filters too…


	4. The Hanky Trick

Hey, you wanna see another magic trick? Check this out. Nothing up my sleeve, right? Nothing up my other sleeve. Got a good view of that? Okay. I thought I heard a sneeze over there. You, sir. Do you need a handkerchief? My sleeves are empty, but see this tiny little vest pocket on my coat? I might have… well well well. There's one, tied to another… and another… and another… my word, they just keep coming… bit much for a sneeze, sorry. Maybe one of you can make your Tallests a more tasteful set of ceremony robes out of them?

Yes, yes, I'll get back to the testimony. No need to get so cranky, you two. Everyone else enjoyed it. Man, you little monsters are like kids when you peel back the brainwashing, aren't ya?

Hmmm. You all look confused, which means you heard that, and probably don't know what it means this far out in the galaxy. It's just another old expression on my world, but it doesn't matter much for now.

Hey, this isn't exactly high heresy, but here's a fun little memory about Zim. Eventually he wanted to learn how to drive our most common type of vehicle, the 'Car'. It looks like this. In fact, here. Better than a stock photo, this is a picture yanked from traffic control cameras. That's Zim blazing through an intersection at 120 miles per hour. You think that's slow? At the time people only pushed 85 on the clearest, longest stretches of highway. I don't even know how we survived a 120 mph car chase, and the police—our law enforcement agents—were not amused.

We almost lost Zim that day. He'd been putting off getting any kind of documentation and he didn't have his disguise on because we hadn't planned on tearing through a populated area. Zim really didn't understand that a car is nothing like a space cruiser and we ended up way off course. So with no documentation and no disguise, they took him in. Me too, since I kicked up a fuss.

Lucky for us, Zim's work in the Eyeball had elevated them to a much stronger and more widespread organization than they'd ever been. They were even starting to get a few people into government positions. Shortly after Zim was taken in, the existence of the Irken race magically leaked to the world, along with a very sympathetic view of his plight and a strong emphasis on his desire to elevate the human race.

The uproar was something to see. It was a day I'd dreamed about for a long, long time.

The pressure was too much, and Zim's declaration that he was willing to swear allegiance to Earth as his primary place of residence pushed it over the edge. There were a few fearmongers here and there, but by and large, Zim was welcomed with open arms and I was appointed chief ambassador to the Irken race. Just a fancy title and government pay for what I was already doing; making sure Zim learned all he could about us and returned knowledge for knowledge.

Once his existence was widely known, we could operate openly. Technological progress was explosive with Zim at the helm. In fact, the very first thing he did after getting free was completely redesign cars. Within ten years, most people had switched over to his new hovercruisers.

Great picture, isn't it? You can kind of see me screaming and holding on for dear life in the passenger seat of that old car. Such a relic, now. I don't know if anyone remembers cars anymore, down on Earth.

Hey, you wanna see another funny snapshot? This one is taken from the broadcast room of the Irken Information Network just a few seconds ago. Y'know, where the signal I hijacked is being routed through. That's an awful lot of panicked faces and button pushing going on. I seem to still be talking to you. I don't think they like that. Your Tallests have pretty dour expressions too. Guess they don't think my stories are as hilarious as I do.

You know, while we're dragging in snapshots of the tech crew yanking their own antennae, I can definitely access all kinds of historical records from here. Anything you guys want to know that you can't usually research? Like, why the Tallests are chosen for being tall, or what started your eons-long conquest, or why there are Control Brains at all?

Funny. Right before you all started shouting in absolute outrage, you looked like you were interested. Just for a moment. Isn't that strange?

* * *

**Note: **A large part of this chapter's content was inspired by a comic about Zim getting caught driving, by user carmelblood on tu(mb)lr.


	5. Out of a Hat

Oh, now you're concerned? Now you act all unsure? Took you long enough. But it's okay, for now I'll keep making the decisions. You'll get the chance to make plenty of decisions soon enough, but I have to be sure you've got no strings attached first. That's an expression having to do with a toy we make on Earth. You take a little doll and attach strings to it and jerk it around to make it behave the way you want.

Oh-hoh. The Control Brains really don't like me talking about that, did you see the whole stage light up? Hello, there, I was wondering when you'd wake up en-en-en-enough to p-p-ay full at-tt-ten—

**Irken food service drone Zim. Ex-Invader in great disgrace. This charade is neither amusing nor informative. Your virus has been identified and is being tracked at this moment. Your high treason is well known to us. It is worthy of a much slower death than we can afford to give an Irken as treacherously devious as you. Be grateful. Commencing-ing-ing el-el-elect er-er-as-ure—**

Yeah I don't think so. You didn't jump in nearly soon enough. Can't even boot me for more than a few seconds by now. I've been working this whole time and you just _now_ consider us a threat? This is half your problem. Your arrogance is its own damn smokescreen. I just have to shake pretty shinies at the screen for a bit longer. Go ahead, scramble. I'm rooted too deep in your system for you to do anything.

Guess I'd better get to the point, yeah?

The Control Brains spoiled a bit of the act, but I can roll with it. At this point, you understand that I'm a virus. You may even realize that reception, at some point in this conversation, shifted from your screens to your minds, indicating my presence in your PAKs. I'd say not to worry, but I'd be worried if my whole way of life was about to change. I will say I'm not here to destroy you. No, I promised you an execution you'd never forget, and I plan to deliver.

But first, wanna see a magic trick? Check in on the defendant. Seems Zim doesn't have a gag anymore. Looks like he's uncuffed and wire-free, too. Wanna guess when that happened? Was anyone paying attention to him? But wait, there's more! Incoming transmission from an outpost on one of your moons. Slightly delayed, my bad. What do they have to say?

_ "Can anyone hear me? This is outpost 45-red-3J8! Send reinforcements, it's an army! There's too many, send reinforcements now! Activate planetary defenses! Somebody get through to the Tallests!"_

Aw, were you supposed to get that a while ago? Really sorry. Better late than never, right? Wow, that's a lot of ships. All different kinds, too. A wave that just keeps coming!

Hello. My name is Dib Membrane. When I was human, I helped Zim break away from the Control Brain's programming. We spent the rest of my life developing a way to spring the rest of you free, too. Reverse engineered through Zim's own PAK.

Mark this date. Today, a virus—a unique computer program with human consciousness and engineered with an earthling's adaptability—is about three quarters done with a complete erasure of the Control Brains. We expect full incapacitation of the Irken race shortly, which is why the coordinates of each and every Irken has been handed out to the force that is now approaching Irk, as well as to select agents that have been placed near you wherever else you are in the universe.

Two hundred years getting humans accustomed to space travel. Another two hundred getting them acquainted with nearby planets, gathering a proactive force all the while. That end of the universe wasn't in range of your conquest yet, but they quite reasonably could be within the next few millennia. They came to safeguard their own futures by remodeling yours.

When this is all over, and you've regained consciousness, each of you will be accompanied by a volunteer from this force for as long as it takes to figure out how to manage the internal fallout of this downfall. My own presence in your PAK will delete itself once erasure is complete. You will not be ruled by codes ever again.

This concludes the trial, my act, and the age of Irken conquest.

Erasure is now complete.

We did it, Zim. Now take a bow.


	6. Draw the Curtain

_ Turning all against one is an art that's hard to teach._

Strains of an old, angry Earth song echoed in Zim's head as he skimmed through the datapad report on the reconstructive surgery the Irken Rehab Alliance had just performed on The Almighty Tallests.

"They came in with crushed ribs, re-organized organs, and plexi spacers stuck between most of their vertical bones. Maximum leg muscle atrophy too." Dib's voice was subdued. "I was in their PAKs, you know. They were hopped up on an ungodly amount of drugs to keep the pain at bay. I'm shocked they were up to making any leaderly decisions at all. They were lucky to have a force of loyal, skilled Invaders able to interpret their general dictates into specific actions."

Zim nodded his head slowly, recalling to mind gossip about seemingly random executions the Tallests had prompted, poor leadership decisions he'd never thought to question, and unusual insistence on stupid, pain-based entertainment like Probing Day. Turns out the Tallests weren't even the tallest except by design, and Invaders bore far more responsibility than they for upholding and extending the glorious Empire.

"What was that political word about monarchs in modern day?" Zim muttered under his breath.

"Figureheads," Dib supplied. "Though in this case, 'puppets' is a lot more accurate."

With their ribs reconstructed and their spacers removed, the Tallests wouldn't look the same as before, which was to their benefit. The more they blended in with the rest of the Irken race, the less chance some angry Vortian, Meekrob, or even Irken tracked them down and murdered them in cold blood. They might be able to lead normal-ish lives. After intensive physical therapy and rehab, they might even be able to walk on their own.

Zim smiled, tapping the screen. "You know, that was almost fun. Besides the nearly being executed bit. Did you see their faces? It was… priceless." The sentence still came haltingly, but he understood the meaning behind most American expressions by now. "You're much more subtle than you were when we first met and all you could do was shriek about aliens. You could practically be an Invader yourself."

"Yeah, well, becoming a supervirus living in a superprocessor for a few hundred years will do that to a personality."

Zim set the datapad aside, turning to stare out the deep-space window-wall of his quarters aboard The Massive. He did this more for Dib's sake than his. The hyuman never got tired of staring out at the star-spangled expansion of space.

"Zim." It was a soft reprimand, but Zim didn't want to think about it.

"A little longer," he pleaded. "Just… can't we enjoy this a little more? We just won. It was everything we wanted it to be."

A heavy sigh, but this time Zim wasn't corrected. He glanced over his shoulder to where Dib sat, now admiring the view Zim had given him with appropriate awe. Dib was absolutely and completely here with him to witness the victory they'd planned. He'd lived to see it it. All that hard work, and now Dib would be there to help with everything that sprang from their success. Rehabilitating the race, restructuring their society—

Dib's head swung around, his eyes fixing on Zim. "Knock it off. Right now."

Zim growled, shutting his eyes. "I want to think like this!" Zim insisted. "Nobody is forcing me! So why not?"

"Because it isn't what he wanted for you. You sink back into denial and there's no telling how far you'll regress or what you'll lose. You'll be spitting in the face of all the progress you've made. You've come this far, Zim. You really can't afford to split off from reality now."

"That's precisely why I need you to stay!" Zim balled his claws up, staring fixedly out the window, away from the image of Dib. The one that was just a projection to his optic nerve from the code harbored in his PAK. He caught a glimpse of its stern-faced reflection on the viewing window, which hadn't been there a moment ago. A very _smart_ code. It refused to leave his line of sight, now.

Dib shook his head. "You've had hundreds of years. That's more than you normally could have had, and the only reason Dib even agreed to this was on the condition that you—"

"No. I don't want to. I can keep you here and you know I can. I won't let you erase."

Dib's disapproval seared him. Of course he knew what Dib would have wanted, the fool had embedded it too thoroughly in the code they created to let Zim forget.

"It's so _stupid._" Zim hissed, jabbing a claw at the reflection. "Other hyumans leaped at the chance to extend their lives when that research became available."

"Yeah, and the fact that not _all_ of them wanted to live for millennia should have clued you in to something."

Seething, Zim shouted, "YOU were stupid, stupid head. I moved a whole planet into an alternate universe where time ran slower. You could have just let us stay there. Instead you pitch… pitched a fit. Insisted I put us back. I hate you. Why couldn't we just have stayed there? You weren't done teaching me. You broke your promise!"

No response.

Zim ground his teeth. In the last century or so, the AI had stopped rising to the bait, leaving him enough space and silence let him pick apart his own statements and, flirk it, _he even knew why._

"Just because I'm getting better at doing this by myself doesn't mean I don't need you here!" Zim knew he was grasping at straws, but he didn't care. "He's gone. I know he's gone and you're just a program, but you're all I have left. Why can't I keep that much? If he's gone, why does it matter if I keep you around against what he said? He's not here to know. It doesn't hurt him."

"Because it will hurt you and your whole race in the long run if you don't learn this lesson." Zim's shoulder warmed slightly as a projected hand rested on it. "Look, you haven't begun to get to the bottom of why this whole Control Brain situation happened in the first place, but I'd put money on part of the reason being fear of death gone awry. Part of our plan was a three plus generation weaning off PAKs, right? Back to naturals, so someday Irkens won't have to manage the brain-chemical fallout of mind control. Part of that is learning that there are worse things than death, and to face death as a part of life.

"So, yeah. I pitched a fit that you tried to slip me Rejuv shots and yanked my whole planet out of its proper place to keep that from ever happening to me. You weren't gonna learn this lesson properly from anyone else. I absolutely kept my promise to teach you all I could, in fact this is one of the biggest lessons I had to teach you and I could only do that by living out my whole life in front of your eyes."

Zim's head hung between shoulders hunched in. He pulled his legs up, tucking knees against his chest and curled over them. He'd argued this innumerable times already and he never won this fight. Dib had ingrained his mindset too solidly in the program for it to be swayed. "I don't want to learn this one."

"You obstinate bug-eyed menace." Dib muttered. Zim barked a short laugh. He hadn't lost his touch. He could still get under Dib's skin. The laugh choked off as a cavern opened up in Zim's chest, swallowing the humor into a black hole that devoured any vision of the future. They'd won, but it didn't seem to matter in the face of losing what remained of this one stupid earthling.

"Hey. Hey, stay with me." Dib's fingers snapped in front of Zim's face, drawing his attention back to the familiar face. There was a small, sad smile on it, now. "Wanna see a magic trick?"

Aching, Zim managed a tiny nod.

"Okay. Watch. Nothing in my hands." Dib waved his hands, showing the palms and the backs. "Nothing up my sleeves." He offered the sleeves of his trademark trench coat for examination. "But hey, how did that get there?" He reached just past Zim's field of vision, withdrawing a quarter. "Zim, you shouldn't hide coins behind your antennae. How are you supposed to camouflage properly if you're reflecting light off your head?"

His vision of Dib wavered, suddenly blurry.

"Wanna see another one?" Dib said, softly. Without waiting for a response, he produced a hat and fished around in it, continuing. "An Earth kid who didn't have a friend in the world managed to hit the lottery. Sure, he had a few life-threatening situations to deal with first, but after about a decade, he found," and here, Dib produced a small Irken plush from the hat, "He had the most loyal friend he could ever ask for."

Dib pulled a deck of cards from the hat, discarding hat and plush together. "Wanna see another one?" He shuffled the deck. "The most infamous Defect in the history of the Empire gets sent to exactly the right place in the universe. Kinda like saying, 'Hey, pick a card!'" Dib spread the carts out, facedown, with the sweep of a hand. The line of cards hovered mid-air, and Zim flinched from the subtle reminder that this was just an optical projection. "Stay with me, Zim. Pick a card."

Dutifully, Zim chose one at random and eased it out from the line, peeking at it before placing it back face-down. Two of shovels.

"Spades, but close enough." Dib nodded, then returned the cards to deck-form and put Zim's card on top. He cut the deck, losing the card in the middle, cut again, and dealt one card face-up. He slowly dealt a few cards face-down from the top. "So, the Defect picked a single human and bet everything on him. And at first, it only paid off in one way." He nodded at the few face-down cards he'd dealt. "Go on, flip the top card."

Zim did so. "Two of sh—spades."

"But he had more up his sleeve." Dib reached forward, toward Zim's neck, and retrieved the three of spades. Then the four of spades. Then the five of spades. He continued pulling spades out of Zim's collar, his sleeves, and his antennae as he said, "And the two of them put in so much work and got so many assistants that they were able to topple the Control Brains themselves and save the future of the Irken race, as well as innumerable others. All this just by surrendering the Defect back to the Irkens at the right time, and delivering a specially crafted virus right to their core system." He threw the whole deck up in the air, each card twirling as it arced up and showered down. "Think about how many other races you freed in addition to your own, Zim. Tell me this whole thing hasn't been the greatest magic trick ever."

Zim gave a small nod.

"But every show has an end. It's time to draw the curtain."

Zim squeezed his eyes shut.

"Time to graduate, Zim. Anything else you learn, you've either got to find out for yourself or by reaching out to other people."

Zim gulped air. "Is… would he be…"

"Yeah, idiot. He'd be proud of you. And I think he'd be bawling like a baby over the level of acknowledgment he got—just like _you_ promised. And that acknowledgment has only just begun."

Zim scrubbed at his eyes. "I think I'll need a break from this mission. Go back to Earth for a while."

"Visit Dib's grave?" The corner's of Dib's eyes crinkled. "Why would you ever want to visit a hyuman's rotting, smelly remains? Isn't that gross and weird?"

Zim laughed again. "Yeah. It is. Your dumb customs are bizarre and filthy… but… weirdly honorable."

"I'll take it."

Zim continued to stare out the window wall. There was nothing left to say. He could feel the code turn in on itself within his PAK, disintegrating line by line. Within seconds, he was truly alone with himself.

A few hours later he stood, stretching to ease the stiffness in his limbs. Not quite among the aged, he still was not nearly as young as he used to be. Slipping a hand under his collar, he pulled out a quarter attached to a thin, silvery chain that looped to the back of his neck. Rubbing it between his claws eased the sharp twist in his spooch a tiny bit. Though perhaps some food would be good as well.

He left his quarters, hugging the right wall as he focused on the shiny bird on one side of the quarter. Quarters and quarters. Radically different meanings to the same word, depending on how you used it in a sentence. Human languages made jokes about this all the time in all their different forms. He was just starting to understand the humor of it, but continued to marvel that they survived long enough to reach space with a ramshackle communication system like that.

"Excuse us!"

Zim glanced up. Two Akiridion-fivers approached, each pushing a hoverbed. They each took up a side of the hall, so Zim would have to scoot to the middle. Saluting the Akiridions, he side-stepped to the middle.

"Zim?"

Zim's antennae jolted as he recognized the occupants of the hover-beds. Purple squinted at him, his expression oddly slack. Zim took in the size of his body at a glance. If he stood on his feet, he would barely be taller than Zim. His eyes slid to the other bed, where Red regarded him with open-mouthed horror.

"What… I…" Red's eyes filled with liquid, his antennae twitching with fury. "What! Did!?"

One of the Akiridions grimaced. "Apologies. They are just waking from reconstructive surgery. We haven't had a chance to work with them yet."

Zim watched Red's features contort from fury to despair and end with a crooked, crazed smile. "We'll see you destroyed for this, Zim," he rasped. "We'll…" he rolled his head to the side, suddenly racked with sobs. "What… did you do to us?"

Zim turned back, slowly. Purple still stared, expressionless, at Zim.

_Hopped up on an ungodly amount of drugs to keep the pain at bay._ According to what he and Dib had learned from the damage to his own brain, the worse the PAK's interference, the more scars the brain would carry for the rest of an Irken's life. Zim looked at his former Tallests with a new understanding and a feeling he'd learned in his time on Earth. Something that made his old wish to stab them through the face with his PAK spiderlegs feel like a petty, smeetish thing.

Abruptly, Zim flicked a tiny latch on his neck-chain and detached the quarter. He rolled it up his sleeve with a practiced gesture. He was pretty sure neither of them had been looking at his hands. "Say, my Tallests, there seems to be something…" He reached behind Red's antennae, just out of his range of vision, and retrieved the quarter from his sleeve, pulling his hand back into view. "Now how did you find a low-moneys unit from Earth all the way out here?"

Red's eyes widened and he spluttered.

Zim turned. "And Tallest Purple, you…" he leaned forward, repeating the sequence to retrieve the quarter again. "You found one as well. How strange."

Purple's eyes went wide and round.

The Akiridions hid smiles behind their hands and Zim grinned himself. "I suppose you two are their assigned caregivers?" At their nod, Zim saluted again. "You have a tough job ahead of you, soldiers. Perhaps I will stop by on occasion to assist. They may find a familiar face comforting in time." Zim marched down the hall, a little lighter with each step. "I think I will, as well."

* * *

**Note**: Song referenced is You're Gonna Go Far Kid by The Offspring. I know sometimes you guys would prefer I bring things to a completely happy conclusion, but I see life as being full of mixed wonderful and painful things, that both must be accepted and dealt with in order to live life fully. While I aim for hope, the bittersweetness of reality is something I can't help pointing back to. It's not even that intentional, this is actually how I see life and it weaves itself into my writing. So this chapter brings the story to its conclusion.

But wait, there's more! To date, Raymond-legends on ffDOTnet has a chapter of recursive fic based on Hey Spacejerk out called Teh Returnening, and Invader Johnny mentioned something in the works as well so keep an eye out. I've answered them already but I'll say it at large, I'm totally fine with recursive fanfic as long as I'm not directly plagiarized. This concept has a lot of room for expansion at several points, though I have covered the points I feel I want to, perhaps you'd like more? Or would rather there had been a different ending? Or other plot points? You are welcome to do so yourself, please just let me know so I can read along too!


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